Leviathan

Leviathan ratchets up the tension to a level that the series hasn't seen since the first few books, with Geary outgunned by the AI controlled dark fleet running a simulation of himself. Saving the Alliance and humanity will mean facing down this autonomous superweapon, which is slipping its programming the longer it keeps running. The battles here are grueling and appropriately dangerous, and this book doesn't break the mold of the series for better or worse. Geary is still Geary, Desjani is still Desjani, and victory hinges on the explosive potential of the hypernet gates.

After 11 of these books in about as many days (Goodreads says I started my reread on June 30th), I can say that they're popcorn, but they're enjoyable popcorn. I show more think I've had my fill, though in a while I might try the Syndic focused Tarnished Knight series, which might offer a needed break from Geary's idealism. show less

I have never read Campbell before but I really liked this world and book. I was thrown into the deep end with the story but Campbell quickly helped me to understand what going on. The universe he creates is fun and feels very real. Campbell does his science homework and I found myself very interested in learning more in real life about some of the theories that he talks about. That said the combat is very slow, like it would be in reality. Campbell gives a good story but does not let reality slow things down. The plot is about the government being dumb and the people who have to clean that up. I liked all the characters I met and when one of them died I was moved.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars.

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83 points, 4 ¼ stars

Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary witnessed the fall of two planets at the hands of a mysterious force. A force that ends up being a fleet of Alliance A.I. warships. Geary has to defeat them before they learn too much and become unstoppable. His only hope? To find their base, and remove it.

Leviathan is the best book out of them all so far. I feel it was always going to come to this ending, I'm just sad it didn't end the way I was hoping for it to end. Maybe a future series, alas. Leviathan is a good ending to Geary's story, for now. I think Campbell has more planned, though. Everything that was started in the Beyond the Frontier series has show more been dealt with. There is only one thing left that the series started out with: taking this evil, incompetent, frustrating government down. Another series hopefully.

The Alliance Government has taken things a step too far. They have created an entire fleet out of Artificial Intelligence run ships. No people at all. And they have all been updated to Geary's tactics. This is the physical magnification to the height of Alliance incompetence. And now it is made worse because Geary is effectively fighting himself. He has to outthink himself.

It is a good thing he has Desjani there to help him. She has been with him through this entire journey, dissecting what he has been doing. I love how this relationship grew over the course of the two series, to the point where Desjani is now considered not the wife of Black Jack Geary, but a competent leader in her own right.

Everything is made worse due to years of classifying everything. This embodies "the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing." Everything to do with the war has been highly classified for longer than anyone can really remember. And not even everyone who should know in the government does know, once again due to extreme classifying of data. I hate it and it annoys me. Yet, I understand why Campbell did it.

The end. Well. I wasn't expecting it to end how it did. I may have cried a little. I won't spoil it but I really wasn't expecting it. I'm glad it happened that way, and I hate that it happened that way.

This is the last in this series. I have the side series and the prequel series left to read, and I'm looking forward to reading them now much more than I did before I started this series.

Side Note: The cover is amazing, and adequately covers exactly what to expect out of the end of Leviathan and the Beyond the Frontier series. show less

Leviathan is the continuing adventures of Admiral John Geary (Black Jack) and the Alliance Fleet he commands. Jack Campbell returns us to the space battlefields that I have enjoyed so much in the series so far with lots of actions and a few new twists to keep it interesting. This was a quick and fun read that will hopefully lead to some additional storylines in the future.

4 stars for a great military sci-fi story and recommended for all Campbell fans!!!

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: Leviathan Series: Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier Author: Jack Campbell Rating: of 5 Battle Axes Genre: SFF Pages: 324

Synopsis: Geary tracks down the rogue A.I. fleet with help of the alien Dancers. He must destroy them at all cost or civilization, both of the Alliance and the Syndics, will fall. But with secret black agencies working against him and the Government, show more can Geary do his job and still abide by the laws he believes are necessary? My Thoughts: Now this is a good military SF book. I like a main character who has character. I like space battles, just not too much [this book was balanced perfectly in that regards]. I like happy endings. In short, this book is why I buy certain books in hardcover. I like it, I'll re-read it in a decade or so and I want to have it on hand should I decide to do a year long re-read of all my favorite books. I truly enjoyed the "If I do that, then they'll do that, then I'll do.." kind of logic chains that went on between Geary and the computers in the A.I. fleet which were coded based on him. How cool is that, fighting a version of yourself? Since Campbell wrote 6 books in the original Lost Fleet series, I am hoping he keeps up the symmetry and ends this sequel series in the next book. " show less

For Black Jack Geary and the crew of his fleet, the war has long been over but the fighting isn't. They returned to the Alliance from their side trip to Earth to discover a new threat to the Alliance worlds. This new threat is a new fleet - one that is capable of fighting even Black Jack to a draw! This is in the same style as all of the books, a quick read, heavy on large space battles and a little light on characters, but if you're in it this far, this is as good as the rest of the books in the series. The plot presents a fairly logical dilemma, what to do after the war is over if everyone doesn't want it to be over.

This series is a bunch of unconnected happenstances where the antagonist is the political leadership served by Geary and the fleet. Awesome space battles against huge odds mean that a couple of characters we trust throughout the series don't make it to the end of this book. As usual, the ending isn't one and it just means you're off to purchase the next book.